Information Commissioner's Office

National Archives

14 July 2008, Central government

The complainant wrote to The National Archives (TNA) to request access to 29 closed files relating to Anglo-American policy in South Asia during the early 1960s. He subsequently contacted the Commissioner to complain about TNA’s withholding of two of these files under the section 27 exemption of the Act (International Relations). Following intervention by the Commissioner, TNA decided to release both files apart from a small amount of information contained within one of them, which it continued to withhold under section 27. The Commissioner decided that he is satisfied with TNA’s application of the exemption to withhold that information. However, he has also decided that TNA breached sections 10 and 17 of the Act in its handling of the request for these two files and that it breached a number of procedural provisions of the Act in its handling of several other requested files.

FOI 27: Not upheld